Cheneys: 'No President Has Been So Wrong About So Much'

Dick and Liz Cheney unload on President Obama in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, accusing the president of squandering a hard-won victory in Iraq, shirking US responsibility to lead in the world, and allowing terrorists to rise again. "Rarely has a US president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," they write. (In his last-ever press conference today, Jay Carney responded to that line by asking, "Which president was he talking about?" notes Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere.) The Cheneys say that when Obama took office in 2009, the Iraq war was largely won and he had only to make sure that Iraqi forces got the training and intelligence they needed to keep things on track. "Instead, he abandoned Iraq," and the same can be said of Afghanistan and Syria.

"Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch," they write. "Indeed, the speed of the terrorists' takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch." Reaction on the left has been swift and of the "death of irony" variety. At the Daily Kos, for example, Barbara Morrill rounds up some of Dick Cheney's statements about Iraq in 2003, including his prediction that the US military action "will go relatively quickly—weeks, rather than months." She concludes: "Seriously, Dick, shut up." (Click for her full post, or for the Cheneys' full post. (More Dick Cheney stories.)